Agriculture vs Pastoralism: Nietzsche And The Indo-European Invasion

The Indo-Europeans

in the biblical story of Cain and Abel

we have a record of one of the most

important conflicts in the history of

mankind the conflict between the

agriculturalists and the pastoralists

perhaps the very same story told in the

mythological war between the Titans and

the Olympians the Acer and the Vanier

imagine that you are a Neolithic

European Farmer laboring in the hot

Fields outside of your village suddenly

you hear rumbling like thunder even

though the sky is cloudless from Horizon

to Horizon you look up and you see

something you have never seen men riding

horses backlit by the blazing sun you

drop your tools and run for the village

walls but it is too late you cannot

outrun the horses the indo-europeans

were a nomadic people who first

harnessed the power of the domesticated

horse and The Chariot to expand out from

the rush step Conquering the native

farmer populations of Europe the Middle

East and spreading all the way to India

imposing their gods and caste systems

upon the local populations we know from

skeletal remains that the indo-europeans

were much larger than the native

European farmers and had larger skulls

with stronger jaws likely due to their

diets rich in Dairy the agriculturalists

had smaller statures and skeletal

structures and were likely vulnerable to

disease due to their diets and lifestyle

in all Indo-European religions there

exists the record of a colossal war

between two races of gods in Greek

mythology it is the war between the

Titans and the Olympians in Norse

mythology between the Acer and the vanir

and in Hinduism between the DeVos and

the asuras some have speculated that

this could be a record of the

Indo-European conquest of the Native

farmer populations whose gods were

subsequently overthrown and submitted to

the rule of the Indo-European deities

many have pointed to the fact that the

older generation of gods the Titans and

the vanir generally seem to represent

more cathonic forces while the Olympians

and Acer are more Celestial in nature

however it's not quite so simple and it

could be argued that it is more likely

that the story is much older and

traveled with the indo-europeans either

way as we know from the fact that we are

sitting in houses right now the

agricultural way of life would

eventually Prevail over the nomadic way

as the nomadic indo-europeans settled in

The Genealogy of Morals

their conquered lands they were

integrated into agricultural societies

and became the ruling castes of the

great civilizations of Europe and the

near East thus while their nomadic

lifestyle disappeared the values and

religious customs of the indo-europeans

were preserved in the aristocracies of

the ruling castes of these societies

however the agriculturalists would

eventually Prevail in this regard too

Nietzsche called this the transvaluation

of all values or the slave revolt

immorality in which the European Pagan

aristocratic ethos was overthrown by the

slave religion of Christianity Nietzsche

writes the two opposing values good and

bad good and evil have fought a dreadful

Thousand-Year fight in the world and

though indutably the second value has

been for a long time in the

preponderance there are not wanting

places where the fortune of the fight is

still undecisive it can almost be said

that in the meanwhile the fight reaches

a higher and higher level and that in

the meanwhile it has become more and

more intense and always more and more

psychological so that nowadays there is

perhaps no more decisive Mark of the

higher nature of the more psychological

nature than to be in that sense

self-contradictory and to be actually

still a Battleground for those two

opposites the symbol of the fight

written in a writing which has remained

worthy of pursule throughout the course

of history up to this present time is

called Rome against Judea Judea against

Rome Nietzsche writes this because

Christianity which began among the Jews

who were conquered by Rome and was

formed as a reaction to Roman power

would eventually conquer Rome and even

all of Europe slowly eating away at the

traces of the values and religions of

the indo-europeans Nietzsche writes that

this reversal of the Pagan aristocratic

ethos was completed with the French

Revolution which overturned the last

vestiges of the Indo-European

aristocracy and that Napoleon was the

last chance to return to the

aristocratic Warrior ethos of the

indo-europeans the story of Cain killing

Cain and Abel

Abel on the one hand represents the

Slave cast of farmers who were conquered

by the nomadic peoples rising up and

killing their masters and on the other

hand the larger conflict between the

pastoralist and agricultural lifestyles

in which agricultural civilization

eventually won out for this reason we

can see that it is fitting that the feel

build the place of Agriculture is where

Cain takes Abel to kill him the way of

the nomadic pastoralist dies in the

field in the story of Adam and Eve being

cast out of Eden was representative of

the transition from animal to man and

from a hunter-gatherer way of life into

a more civilized one Adam's punishment

for eating the forbidden fruit was being

bound to the Earth in toilsome

agricultural labor and Eve's punishment

was being bound to Adam in painful

childbirth but in the story of Abel and

Cain we see that a remnant of the free

way of life of life in Eden Remains the

nomadic pastoralist lifestyle

represented by Abel Cain has inherited

Adam's curse of being bound to the Earth

but Abel is free from it living instead

off of his mobile flocks in the story of

Cain and Abel the victory of the

Agricultural way of life life is

represented as a bad thing almost as a

second fall from Eden in Genesis 4 after

Cain kills Abel God says to Cain what

have you done the voice of your

brother's blood who cries out to me from

the ground so now you are cursed from

the earth which has opened its mouth to

receive your brother's blood from your

hand when you till the ground it shall

no longer yield its strength to you a

fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on

the Earth

after killing Abel Kane becomes an

outcast just as Adam and Eve first

became outcasts among God's creations

when they acquired higher cognition

further Adam's punishment of

agricultural labor becoming painful is

replicated as the ground is made even

harder to till for Cain Genesis 4 goes

on to say that Enoch Kane's son created

cities a further estrangement from

nature but since the time of this

Looking to the Heights

ancient biblical story we have created

industrial and now what might even be

called Digital Society making us even

more far removed from Eden of course

agricultural industrial and digital

civilization have lended us great

benefits but they have also come with a

great danger the danger of permanently

losing the grace and power of our

ancestors the danger of a never-ending

descent into the abyss the farther we

stray from living in alignment with

nature and nature's laws the less free

we become and the less we are favored by

the gods given the current direction of

our civilization we will all end up

being frail sickly creatures living in

an industrial slum living the lives of

insects but it is not too late to aim

for a different future it is not too

late to correct the course of human

civilization and to re-establish a free

way of life in alignment with the

principles of nature for those who

desire it though we may not ride horses

through the open Plains again we can

still aspire to a life on the Olympian

Heights a life among the cool free

clouds a life with eyes set on distant

Peaks and when the masses of man all

look down and drown themselves in filth

and ugliness is it not all the sweeter

to be one of the few who looks up